featuring guest authors; crafting tips and projects; recipes from food editor and sleuthing sidekick Cloris McWerther; and decorating, travel, fashion, health, beauty, and finance tips from the rest of the American Woman editors.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

MONEY MATTERS WITH SHEILA CONWAY--YARD SALE SAVVY

One woman’s junk is another woman’s treasure. Sheila Conway, American Woman’s Go-To Money Saving Guru talks today about how to pull off a successful yard sale. -- AP

Thanks, Anastasia. As you all probably know by now, decorating editor Jeanie Sims is our yard sale queen. Jeanie loves hunting through yard sales to find all sorts of discards she can turn into useful treasures. If you’re one of those people who would make Jeanie drool if you let her loose in your basement, attic, and/or garage, why not put all that stuff you no longer use up for sale and reap the cash benefits?

Yard sale season is in full swing. Like Jeanie, many of your neighbors spend their Saturday mornings traveling around from one yard sale to the next. It only takes a little bit of work to entice them to fill your coffers while cleaning out your piles of unwanted clutter.

Here are some tips for having a successful yard sale.

*Display the items you have for sale in such a way that they entice people to take a closer look. Make sure everything is clean and set out on tables and benches.

*People will drive by without stopping if they see you’re only trying to get rid of what amounts to trash. Don’t offer dirty or broken items.

*Make sure all electronics are in working order. Have an extension cord and/or batteries handy so items can be tested.

*Display items either by category or price. All housewares together, all electronics together, etc. Or a $1 table, a $3 table, a $5 table, etc.

*Mark prices on all items. If someone has to ask about price, that person might walk away instead of asking.

*Don’t overprice items. You’re having a yard sale, not opening a designer consignment shop. All items should be at least 50% off their original price.

*Be willing to negotiate. Remember, accepting a few dollars less for an item you don’t need or want is better than not selling that item at all. You’ll only have to haul it back into your home or trash it.

*If items aren’t selling, don’t be afraid to drop the prices. Again, if you don’t sell it, you have to keep it or trash it. Isn’t it better to sell something on the cheap than not at all?

*Make sure you have lots of change. You don’t want to lose a sale for a $2 item because the prospective buyer only has a twenty dollar bill and you’ve run out of change.

*Get the word out. The night before the sale post signs in strategic spots around the neighborhood where drivers will see them. Use poster board and thick marker. Write a very big, bold SALE and an arrow pointing the way. Add address, date, and times below. The morning before your sale, post it on Craigslist.

*Plan to get up early to haul everything out and set up. Die-hard yard sale devotees often show up well before the start time. You want everything set up before they start arriving.

Hmm...maybe I need to root through my attic. Thanks, Sheila! What about the rest of you? Anyone ever had a yard sale? How did it go? Post a comment to be eligible for a free book this week from our Book Club Friday guest author. -- AP

4 comments:

There are other, better-organized options for advertising your garage sale online than just advertising on craigslist. It's hard to sift through all their listings and actually find some I'd like to go to.

Another idea for a Garage Sale. At the end of the sale, I offer whatever can fit in a grocery sack for a $1 or $2. The excess seems to melt away. Another idea is to list what's left on Free Cycle and almost always, it is gone the same day.

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SCRAPBOOK OF MURDER

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 6

SLEUTHING WOMEN II: 10 MYSTERY NOVELLAS

LITERALLY DEAD: an Empty Nest Mystery, Book 2

SLEUTHING WOMEN: 10 FIRST-IN-SERIES MYSTERIES

A collection of 10 full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem, each the first book in an established multi-book series

A STITCH TO DIE FOR

Book 5 in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series

MOM SQUAD: a Shadow Ops Novella

WE'D RATHER BE WRITING

BAKE, LOVE, WRITE

DEFINITELY DEAD

An Empty Nest Mystery, Book 1

CRAFTY CRIMES

a Trio of Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mysteries

PATCHWORK PERIL

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DECOUPAGE CAN BE DEADLY

MOSAIC MAYHEM

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

REVENGE OF THE CRAFTY CORPSE

CREWEL INTENTIONS

an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mini-Mystery

DEATH BY KILLER MOP DOLL

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY GLUE GUN

THE ANASTASIA POLLACK CRAFTING MYSTERIES

Read about Anastasia in the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery seriesby Lois Winston. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews called it "North Jersey's more mature answer to Stephanie Plum." Assault With a Deadly Glue Gunwas also a Book of the Year Award nominee from ForeWord Reviews, a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, and a Readers Choice Award nominee from the Salt Lake City Library System. Other books in the series include Death by Killer Mop Doll, Revenge of the Crafty Corpse, Decoupage Can Be Deadly, A Stitch to Die For, and Scrapbook of Murder, plus three mini-mysteries: Crewel Intentions,Mosaic Mayhem, and Patchwork Peril. Look for more of Anastasia's adventures coming in the future.

About Me

I'm the crafts editor at American Woman magazine; the single parent of two teenage boys and a Shakespeare quoting parrot; caretaker to a semi-invalid, communist mother-in-law from Hell and her demon dog; daughter to a multi-married descendant of the Czars (supposedly); reluctant cat-sitter to Mama's extremely corpulent white Persian cat; a born Jersey girl; and star of my own amateur sleuth mystery series.